Sony’s upcoming 2.0 firmware update for the PS4 is bound to be a doozy. Not only will it add support for multiplayer game streaming with Share Play, but Sony has just announced a handful of surprisingly solid features slated for this fall. From music playback to better social features to improved voice commands, PlayStation enthusiasts are in store for some significant new features in this release, codenamed “Masamune.”

Back at Gamescom, Sony first teased the 2.0 update. Share Play and built-in YouTube export were the headlining features, but this release will offer much more than that. In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Sony’s Scott McCarthy outlines some of the new features that system software 2.0 brings to the PS4, and it looks very promising.

Much ado was made over the PS4’s lack of media playback options, and it seems that this update is the first step towards returning to the “it only does everything” feature set of the PS3. The PS4 will now be able to play music files off of a USB storage device, but will not allow the files to be saved on the PS4’s internal drive. Why? Sony isn’t saying much, but it’s safe to assume this was simply the fastest way to implement music playback without breaking anything else or increasing game load times. There’s no word about video playback, but there are ways around that limitation anyway.

Themes and customizable colors are making their way to the PS4, but that’s not much of a surprise. The UI is getting tweaked to make navigation a bit easier, and voice commands are being improved — largely to keep up with the Kinect‘s superior vocabulary. Sony will now recommend PSN users to you if you have friends in common, and it seems that the PlayStation team is focused on smoothing out some of the rough edges of the PSN user experience. For example, free PlayStation Plus games will now offer an “Add to Library” option instead of automatically assuming you want to download everything immediately. It’s a small change, but it’s appreciated nonetheless.

Unfortunately, there’s still no official confirmation or denial regarding game suspension in the 2.0 firmware. This feature was promised before the PS4 was released, and we’ve not seen hide nor hair of it since. As someone who frequently uses a PS4, I’m eagerly awaiting the ability to put my PS4 into sleep mode, and then quickly resume playing right where I left off. Xbox One users have enjoyed this feature since late last year, and the Vita has very similar functionality. Frankly, the lack of game suspension is my biggest complaint with the platform, and it’s disappointing that Sony continues to stay mum on the subject.

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I find it strange that this got an article but not the fabulous Xbone update yesterday that enabled DLNA support, MKV playback natviely and a slew of other GUI improvements.

Zunalter

Oh, great point! Let us don our tin foil hats and puzzle out why that could be…

PS, way to +1 yourself lol ^^

IKROWNI

I find it strange to see consoles on either side lacking in the most basic of media playback functionality. My original Xbox I Modded from way way back when around 2001 had dlna support, the ability to save files from a USB stick to the device and the ability to play game directly from the hdd which was easily upgradable to any size I chose all without the need of the physical disc being in the device. And as I said this was the first Xbox system from 2001 with these capabilities. But here we are going into 2015 and both consoles still lacking features that are capable on the original devices from well over a decade ago.

Soooo “next gen” can’t wait to find what the next “next gen” devices will lose in features. Maybe they won’t be compatible with display devices at all until a patch the following year. You guys can just close your eyes and imagine your playing a game. And the best part will be that it can be any resolution you want it to be.

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justerthought

The PS4 does instal the full game on the hard drive for smoother access so the game side is sorted no problem. But yes the multimedia is woefully lacking.

Holeybartender

I find it strange that people are bitching that a videogame console can’t play that non-essential to videogaming crap. Does it play videogames? That’s all you need,be happy.

IKROWNI

yea they play games albeit not very well and at the bottom of the graphical spectrum. but hey at least they kinda work.

RandomBeaner

Remember the first games on ps3 and the last games on ps3? Itll get better after a while

Fesoferbex

I read some of your other posts. You’re not a very nice person. You either need to mature, or you should probably be punched square in the jaw.

I doubt little else will fix your problem.

Holeybartender

Its not stupid to have these features,but they are not needed for gaming. Most of them weren’t even promised by Sony in the first place.

I haven’t been a kid since ’93,lmao. I come from a family of 8. I know more about your “woes” than you do,its hard I get it.

The PS3 and PS4 is a video game console first and foremost,everything else is meaningless add-ons. All these features are not essential to gaming and weren’t even added until years after PS3 released. Yes the CD playback is a valid complaint as it has always been a PlayStation feature,same with a Blu-ray on the PS4 but these features are not “missing” from the PS4. Sony never promised DLNA or MP3 playback,they delivered on gaming and that’s all that matters.

Fesoferbex

You know nothing of my “woes.”

You’re rather pretentious telling someone you know more about their own life than they do, don’t you think?

Holeybartender

By meaningless, I mean meaningless to gaming,not you or me.. None of these are a required feature to play videogames. I like that they have these features as I use them often myself but bitching about not having something that was never promised you in the first place is as childish as you can get. Your like a little kid who thinks that when mommy says maybe she’ll get you candy at the grocery store it means yes you can.So quit your crying and put your seatbelt on,junior…

Sony didn’t even consider MP3 playback in the first place when developing the PS4. You want to talk about investors? Well, your investors didn’t care that this feature wasn’t available to you either. I have more insight on the making of the PS4 than you do as I’ve been following the PS4 everyday since it was announced so my insight is factually based while yours is limited to simple childish expectation.Shrug that off all you want,crybaby,I’m still right.

Fesoferbex

You’ve contradicted yourself multiple times now. I don’t even need to talk, you can just argue with your own comments.

Also, I doubt you are an engineer, so, no you probably don’t know more than I do about the PS4 or any other machine.

There you go buddy. MP3 or CD playback wasn’t part of the PS4’s development in the first place. Sony didn’t even think it would be missed.

Fesoferbex

Shhhh… no more talking now.

Holeybartender

Yup just like I thought,continue being an ignorant little chid. Your wrong and can’t take the truth so you tell me to stop talking. Go find some other outdated article to cry about, little kid.

Fesoferbex

” *You’re wrong”
FIFY

Holeybartender

The texting sux on my PS4,so what…? Oh look it spelled child as ‘chid’ too. Ooh,ya got me. Oh no,I spelled sucks as sux. Let’s ignore every other of my comments being perfectly spelt and focus all our attention at the 2 that are wrong,that’ll prove he doesn’t know what he’s talking about…Nice try,punk kid. I’m still right.

Bye kid, it was fun proving you wrong all this time. Go ahead and type whatever lame excuses for being wrong you can think of, I’m out this bitch…

Fesoferbex

spelled*

Guest12

My god, shut the hell up. You are making yourself look stupid, not that you are already.

Greg Kaney

The ps4 media play back is a joke compared to ps4….my fuckin android phone has a better media player…face it they thought everyone would subscribe to “music unlimited”…ummm not…HUGE step backwards as far as a home jukebox goes for sure…

Greg Kaney

Compared to ps3 I mean of course

meddle0ne

It’s not really news that the XB1 is awesome. PS3.5 getting an update, now there’s a surprise!

sampson3121

laugh, share play is the finale nail in the x1 coffin…Christmas will be grande! ps4 will sell 4 to 1.

Gareth Morris

So DDR3 on your X1, is a step forward compared to GDDR5 on PS4 which contributes towards it being called PS3.5? Your logic is astonishingly dumb!

sampson3121

so xbone has inferior hardware and you want to talk about what?
720p lmfao ddr3? hahaha!! and the losers who bought it :) ps4 another win 9 months straight, better gamers, better hardware and better games. DDR3? LOL OMG! if i were you i wouldn’t let anyone know you bought that piece of crap…first time i watched FH2 game play footage i thought it was being played on the 360…then i actually read the article and to my amazement it was the ddr3 720p hahaha! i wish i was joking but im not :) losers!
please come back for more.

Gareth Morris

What the fuck are you talking about? I own a PS4, and am sayng that GDDR5 IS a step forward! Was that reply aimed at me or the guy I was replying to? Yo’ve confused me.

sampson3121

ddr3 720p compared to GDDR5 1080P is a step forward? lol and you call me dumb?

Gareth Morris

Well yeah, because you’ve clearly got me wrong! My original comment was to meddleOne, not you. I hope you feel silly now, and if you don’t, you should! DERP…………

sampson3121

oops! sorry about that, mad a mistake and clicked on you’re reply, i was laughing to hard at his stupid comment to see . lol

Gareth Morris

That’s ok, apology accepted! I was like “what the fuck have I done to this guy?” lol.

Jim Magdelania

lol. because devs crippling ps4 framerates just so xbone fans don’t whine about being short changed is so awesome!!

justerthought

I think it is because the XB1 is constantly updating, while this PS4 update has been awaited for quite a while so it is far more news worthy. Stop sulking you have the superior multimedia console. We have the superior games console.

Craig G.

I don’t believe I have read a reply sir. Do you have a rebuttal?

Dual_Heart

Pretty neat, that mkv. Does ssa work also? I usually just stream stuff with tversity tbh tho.

Its a shame an xboxone is not on the table for a while though, not enough games that interest me on it, at least not exclusives anyway.

Rally though in some aspects ps4 is abit dissappointing

Max

The only reason i didn’t get the PS4 was because they took away the media playback. I am now really interested in the new Nexus TV box that was announced by google. It looks pretty god damn awesome. I will wait till they fix all their shortcomings but i think that is the way to go. I don’t think i need the PS4 anymore.

meddle0ne

This was a very kind review of the 2.0 update.

sampson3121

lol…bots who butthurt :)

Bitterbear

“The PS4 will now be able to play music files off of a USB storage device, but will not allow the files to be saved on the PS4′s internal drive. Why? Sony isn’t saying much, but it’s safe to assume this was simply the fastest way to implement music playback without breaking anything else or increasing game load times.”

No, the safest way to assume is that they want you to buy music from their digital store, so they’re making things difficult for the PS4 users to enjoy media not sold by Sony.

Phobos

Strange for the X1 given how they wanted to be a media center yet it won’t let you play video or audio from USB unless they are WMV, as for the PS its no surprise either.

Paul Stableford

Are you suggesting that with the Xbox One you can now or at any time could only play wmv once they enabled external usb support?

meddle0ne

Umm. The X1 can play nearly any format you throw at it.

Mirimon

Except for 1080p….

sampson3121

a company that has a music store in their product actually wants people to buy from their store? the horror!

At last Sony is making steps to update the PS4 multimedia facilities and allow us to play our music. It sounds great but I will have to see how limited it is before I give it the praise the PS3 deserves with its excellent media playback facilities. On PS3 I have all my mp3 collection on the hard drive with backups on DVD. The quality coming out of mp3’s on my PS3 was far superior to my stand alone CD player so I converted all my CD’s to mp3 and created an awesome archive on the PS3 hard drive.

The limited PS4 hard drive space is so precious, there is no way I’m putting my mp3’s on that, so I either need the ability to play them off the DVD backup, or from a USB external hard drive that I could buy.

Up to now, Sony think multimedia is multiple streaming services right now, which is basically micro-transaction multimedia. We need to be able to play all the media we already own. The XB1 is making great progress with its MKV playback. All my HD holiday videos are in mp4 format and when I download game videos for closer inspection with smoother playback without using the internet lag, they too are in mp4 format. I’m hoping Sony give us the mp4 movie playback feature from the PS3.

For example, when I tried to play the PS4 HD documentary about the guy who did the excellent music for The Last Of Us, it was unplayable when selected from the game menu due to network lag. I ended up downloading it from Youtube to a USB stick and playing it on my PS3. If I didn’t still have my PS3, I would have been knackered. I do the same trick with game videos. All the GTAV and Far Cry 4 HD trailers are currently on my usb stick so I can play them on PS3. The PS3 makes everything look superb on the HD TV. Far superior than playing them on the computer screen. I also have my HD TV set up as an additional computer monitor but that is nowhere near the quality coming out of PS3 direct to TV.

Mirimon

Er… poi t in fact, mp3 degrades audio quality of cd, not the other way around.

Swinny UK

Man, the music feature is a God-send! After the first few hours with Drive Club I was already bored of its limited soundtrack(probably around 10 songs at most).
I’ve been playing Resogun religiously since launch, so naturally I’m pretty of bored of that music although its admittedly awesome.
This music feature should have been there from day-one, though now that I know what it means to not have this feature, I think I’m going to appreciate it all the more.

chojin999

Why would anyone turn any game audio off and play anything else? And anyway… why couldn’t anyone just use anything else to play music and turn the gaming system audio off ?
The console playing music files in the background excluding the game audio is a useless dumb feature.

NFL Superbowl

Convenience Friend, sometimes video games come with awful soundtracks like Watch Dogs for example, or maybe the soundtrack doesn’t please a current group of peoples. everybody, has different taste in music, so you can’t please them all.

Not everybody likes rap or country or rock music. Peoples have,different taste in what they would like to hear”. I know many gamers who were unhappy with the soundtracks in GTA IV & 5. Saying it wasn’t better than Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.

Swinny UK

Heck no its not when I’ve probably heard each Resogun song 1000 times over. And I play with headphones, that is why I ‘can’t just use anything else to play music’. But not only that, even if I was playing from a sound system or TV speakers, its still better to have all of the audio coming from one place, in the game for immersion.
Using another system to play music is what is dumb, honestly, try both options yourself and then come back and tell me which one was more convenient and immersive.

http://www.ultimatexbmc.com/ Ultimatexbmc.com

Can it run XBMC yet, NO, so what’s the point :)

Jeffrey Kuhl

That’s great. Now if only they would actually bring it to the PS4.

Rartemass

I have an older DVR for streaming video. PS4 for playing games. While it would be nice to be able to play videos from my NAS on the PS4 I still have the DVR for this purpose. If that breaks then I’ll want the PS4 to handle it rather than replacing the DVR. I’m sure my 4 year old DVR will stay alive for the 12 months it’ll take Sony to provide AVI and MDK playback.

Mr Moo

I can’t believe people pay £300 – £400 for a console that can’t do the most basic functions. Mp3 players and music phones have been around for 15 years or more yet the ps4 can’t play mp3s. Why do people still buy into this shit?
If I bought any electronic device that uses a screen then found out it couldn’t play music or videos, I’d take it straight back thinking it’s faulty, then when I’m told it isn’t faulty I’d demand my money back because it’s clearly an unfinished product.

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